Business owners are lucky that they create their own work environment, unlike managers in large corporations who step into rigid, pre-created cultures. However, many business owners allow the working culture in their businesses to flow organically from their personality, without giving much thought to how it could be perhaps better engineered

If there is a single figure that illustrates the force that women are becoming in the South African economy, it is that no less than 41% of the clients of Business Partners Limited (BUSINESS/PARTNERS) are women-owned small and medium enterprises.

Technology changes at a rapid rate, but is this the same for the business world? You bet! If you think that you can apply the same thinking and the same approach towards business as you did 15 or 20 years ago, you are in for a surprise.

Making more money is on every wish list of all entrepreneurs, but it's not so easy. However, sometimes it is just about applying pure common sense. The answers are often right under your nose and you just do not see or realise it.

If lending figures from Business Partners, South Africa leading finance house for small and medium enterprises, are anything to go by, genuine gender parity seems to be within reach in the local community of owner-managed businesses in the foreseeable future.

It is widely agreed that women's style of doing business tends to differ from that of men, even though the distinctions are never clear-cut. But there is enough of a difference to suggest that the rise of female entrepreneurs is slowly changing the culture of the business world.

When she thinks of the work-life balance of business owners, the image that comes to mind for Gugu Mjadu, executive general manager: marketing at Business Partners, is of her mother on holiday with her family with the phone stuck to her ear – constantly talking to her staff at the office.